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Get Lost !

I taste wine nearly every day. My typical regime is to have our lab tech, Mark, pull and prepare the samples in the morning and I'll taste through various wines each morning between about 10:00-12:00. In terms of winemaking, it is one of my most cherished rituals and pleasurable responsibilities.

It's not unusual for me to get lost in glasses of wine during these tastings. It's that moment when you close your eyes, the world goes silent and you take in the full experience of the wine as a canvas drenched in vibrant colors and musical notes raining down from the heavens. It's that moment when the wine sings to you in a voice so beautiful that the lyrics don't matter. It's that moment when a wine is a field of wildflowers, or a dusty box of fresh cherries, or a sweet fragrant kiss from your true love.

I love getting lost in wines. It's the indescribable thrill and ultimately the reason we work so hard in the field and cellar to craft the wines we do. It's the climax.

While allowing yourself the luxury of getting lost in a wine is perhaps the purest route to enjoyment, it doesn't ultimately lend itself to responsible cellar management. As a counterbalance, I also keep extremely detailed tasting notes and rankings of all my tastings - lot by lot - and diligently have these entered into the computer for future reference, both long and short term. In my humble opinion, a winemaker must simultaneously be his own most enthusiastic supporter and also his own bluntest critic. The former trait will encourage and compel him to try new paths in seeking his ideal wine - the latter trait will keep him true to his vision and let him know when he's drifted down the wrong path.

And so my tastings go each morning, oscillating back and forward from beautiful lost wanderings in glasses of wine as vast as seas and skies to scribbling down its essence in a handful of sentences when I open my eyes again.